Star Trek: Pantheon (52 page)

She might have died in her fight with Jomar, he told himself. The Kelvan might have miscalculated and killed her. And then Joseph would never have had the chance to speak with Santana again…

And to tell her he was sorry.

Not for being vigilant, because it was a security officer’s job to be vigilant. But for not accepting her apology when she tendered it to him in the engineering support room on Deck 26.

On the other side of the triage area, Dr. Greyhorse was puttering around with his instruments. He seemed distracted—as distracted as Joseph had been when he last visited sickbay. Or maybe, knowing how the security officer felt about Santana, the doctor was simply giving him some privacy.

Joseph gazed at the colonist again and resisted an impulse to straighten a lock of her hair. He had been so determined not to get fooled again, he had almost prevented her from going after Jomar.

If he had been successful, the Kelvan would have faced Picard and Ben Zoma alone, without any help from Santana. There was no telling what would have happened to the officers then.

Picard trusted her, Joseph thought. Maybe I should have trusted her too. He resolved to tell her that when she woke.

There’s no need,
said a voice in his head.
You’ve told me already.

And Santana opened her eyes.

He felt his face flush with embarrassment. “You were reading my mind,” he said accusingly.

“Are you upset with me?” she asked, her voice thin and reedy from the medication Greyhorse had administered.

The security officer started to say yes, started to protest that she had violated his privacy. Then he stopped himself. “Not anymore,” he told her. “Not after what you risked to stop Jomar.”

Santana smiled wearily. “I was afraid he would transform me into a tetrahedron,” she murmured, “the way he transformed Brentano. That made me fight a little harder.”

“So he wouldn’t get the chance,” Joseph deduced.

“Uh huh.” The colonist drew a breath, then let it out. “I’m glad you’re not angry at me.”

So was he. He said so.

“I’m so tired,” Santana told him, stumbling over the words. “Would you do me a favor, Lieutenant?”

“Anything,” the security officer answered.

“Would you stand guard over me? Just for old times’ sake?”

He nodded. “I’d be glad to.”

A moment later, Santana was asleep.

*   *   *

Picard regarded the Nuyyad supply installation on his screen and counted the number of warships circling it.

“Is it my imagination,” he asked Ben Zoma, “or are there four vessels defending the depot again?”

“There are four, all right,” said his friend. “Apparently, the Nuyyad had other ships in the area.”

“And maybe more on the way,” the second officer noted. “All the more reason to act quickly.”

Ben Zoma didn’t respond to the statement, but his expression wasn’t one of complete confidence. Then again, he hadn’t been eager to go after the depot from the beginning.

Picard took another look at the depot and its fleet of defenders. Was his friend right? Were they out of their league? Or would their secret weapon be enough to pull off a victory?

There was only one way to find out.

“All hands to battle stations,” he said.

All over the ship, he knew, crewmen were rushing to their predetermined posts. He remembered what it was like to respond to such an order, to know that a battle was imminent.

On the bridge, it was a different experience entirely. It was at once headier and more daunting. After all, he wasn’t just responsible for one isolated job. He was responsible for
all
of them.

“Strafing run?” Ben Zoma suggested.

The second officer shook his head. He had already considered the idea and rejected it. “I would rather be in their midst, where they will have to worry about hitting each other with their vidrion bursts.”

Just as the second officer expressed that sentiment, he saw two more of the enemy ships move out to meet him. Apparently, the choice of approach had been taken out of their hands.

“Phaser range?” he asked Vigo.

“In a few seconds, sir,” the weapons officer told him.

“Target the foremost vessel,” said Picard.

“Targeting,” Vigo responded.

“Range,” Gerda announced.

The commander eyed the viewscreen. “Fire!”

The Nuyyad tried to twist out of the way. But the
Stargazer’
s phaser beams punched through the vessel’s shields, shearing off its nacelles on one side and cutting a deep furrow on the other.

A moment later, the enemy ship met its demise in a ball of yellow-white flame—a blast so prodigious that it licked at the extremities of the victim’s sister vessels.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Picard called out. “Pattern Gamma!”

Accelerating, the
Stargazer
split the difference between the Nuyyad ships and blew right through the remnants of the vessel she had destroyed. The enemy must have been surprised, because it didn’t even get off a volley.

“Pattern Alpha!” the second officer demanded. “I want them both in our sights again!”

Idun muscled the ship hard to port until the Nuyyad appeared on the viewscreen. Then she bore down on them.

“Target the starboard vessel and fire!” said Picard.

At close range, their enhanced phasers were even more effective. The beams rammed through one side of the Nuyyad ship and came out the other. And in the process, they started a series of savage explosions that gradually tore the vessel to pieces.

The third vessel raked them with a vidrion barrage, causing the
Stargazer
to jerk to port. But again, their shields kept them from serious harm. Then it was the Federation ship’s turn again.

“Target and fire!” Picard told his weapons officer.

Once more, Vigo’s aim was impeccable. Their phasers speared the Nuyyad vessel through its heart, causing it to tremble and writhe with plasma eruptions until it was claimed by a massive conflagration.

For the second time that day, the second officer found himself the winning combatant. But he wasn’t done yet—not while the supply depot still lay ahead of them.

“Resume course?” asked Idun.

Picard nodded. “And give me a visual of the installation.”

Instantly, an image of the depot leaped to the viewscreen. Up close, the thing was even more gigantic, even more daunting than before. It dwarfed its lone remaining defender.

The second officer focused himself on the task ahead. He hadn’t forgotten that he chose this course over the objections of others. If it failed, he would have only himself to blame.

That is, if he was still in a position to blame anyone at all.

Abruptly, the last of the Nuyyad ships came after them. No doubt, its commanding officer knew the other vessels had failed miserably, and his was likely to do the same. But it didn’t stop him.

“Phaser range,” said Vigo.

Picard regarded the enemy. “Target and fire!”

This time, the enemy veered at just the right moment and eluded the
Stargazer’
s first volley. But her second assault nailed the Nuyyad ship. Pierced to its core, it shivered violently and succumbed to a frenzy of yellow-white brilliance.

That left only one target. The second officer considered its mighty sprawl of diamond-shaped plates on the viewscreen.

It hadn’t fired a single shot. Maybe I was wrong about its firepower, Picard thought. Maybe it’s a sitting duck after all.

“Aim for its center,” he decided. “Fire when ready, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir,” said Vigo, his long, blue fingers skittering over the lower portion of his control panel.

But the supply depot struck first.

It sent out a stream of vidrion bundles that far surpassed anything the Nuyyad’s ships had thrown at them. Seizing the captain’s chair for support, the commander rode out one bone-jarring impact after the other.

“Status?” he called out, as Idun did her best to make them a more difficult target.

“Shields down twenty-six percent,” Gerda responded crisply. “No hull breaches, no casualties.”

“Sir!” said Vigo, his voice taut with urgency.

Picard turned to him. “Lieutenant?”

The Pandrilite looked stricken. “Sir, phasers are off-line!”

The second officer felt the blood rush from his face. Without the amplified phaser power Jomar had given them, they were all but toothless.

And the depot still hung defiantly in space, ready to serve as the key to a Nuyyad invasion of the Federation…

Another pale-green flight of vidrion packets blossomed on Picard’s viewscreen, seeking to bludgeon his ship out of space.

Idun gave it the slip with a twisting pattern that tested the limits of the inertial dampers. However, she couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. The installation’s gunners were too accurate, their weapons too powerful.

And there was no telling how many more enemy vessels were on their way, eager to finish what the depot’s vidrion cannons had started.

To this point, Picard had relied on the talents of the Magnians and a Kelvan to get him past the rough spots. Now he was on his own. If he was going to prevail, he was going to have to rely on
himself.

But what could he do? The depot was significantly better armed than they were, better equipped…

Then he remembered something one of his professors had taught him back at the Academy, when he and his classmates were studying shield theory.
The larger and more complicated an object’s shape, the more difficult it is to protect effectively.

The depot was very large, very complicated. Its armor had to have some chinks in it. All the second officer had to do was find them.

“Mr. Vigo,” he said, approaching the weapons console, “analyze the installation’s shield structure. See if you can find a weak point.”

He peered over the Pandrilite’s shoulder as he called up a sensor-driven picture of the enemy’s shields. Together, they pored over it, knowing that they might absorb a vidrion barrage at any moment.

“Here,” said Vigo, pointing to a spot between two of the massive diamond shapes that encircled the depot. “There’s a lower graviton concentration at each of these junctures. If we can get close enough, we might be able to penetrate one with a few well-placed photon torpedoes.”

Picard agreed. “We will get close enough,” he assured the weapons officer. Then he turned to Idun. “Aim for a juncture between two of the diamond shapes. We need to hit it with a torpedo barrage.”

His helm officer did as she was instructed. Like a hawk stooping to take a field mouse, the
Stargazer
darted for the depot’s weak spot.

The Nuyyad gunners must have seen them coming. But unlike a ship, the installation wasn’t mobile. It couldn’t evade their attack. All it could do was punish its enemy with all the firepower at its disposal.

Picard felt the bridge shiver as the first volley rammed into them. The viewscreen went dead for a second, then flickered back to life.

“Shields down forty-two percent,” Gerda called out.

The second volley hit them even harder, rattling the second officer’s teeth. An unmanned console went up in sparks and filled the air with the acrid smell of smoke.

“Shields down sixty-four percent,” the navigator barked.

The third volley forced Picard to grab Vigo’s chairback or be knocked off his feet. As he recovered, he saw that a plasma conduit had sprung a leak.

“Shields down ninety percent,” Gerda reported dutifully.

They couldn’t take another blast like the last one, the second officer told himself. But then, maybe they wouldn’t have to.

“Now, Mr. Vigo!” he shouted over the hiss of seething plasma.

A string of golden photon torpedoes went hurtling toward the depot. Before the enemy could fire again, the torpedoes hit their target—and were rewarded with a titanic display of pyrotechnics.

But did they pierce the Nuyyad’s shields? As Idun Asmund pulled them off their collision course, Picard peered at the weapons console and checked the depot’s status.

For a moment, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then Vigo said it out loud, giving his discovery the weight of reality.

“We must have hit one of their primary shield generators, sir. They’re defenseless from one end to the other.”

As defenseless as the
Stargazer
had been after its initial encounter with the Nuyyad. As defenseless as the Magnians had been when the second officer found them.

Picard eyed the viewscreen, which was still tracking the enemy depot as Idun brought them about. The installation didn’t look any different to the human eye, but to their sensors it was naked and unprotected.

He had a feeling the Nuyyad would remember this day. Certainly, he knew
he
would. “Target and fire,” he told his weapons officer.

Vigo unleashed one torpedo assault after the other, pounding the installation in a half-dozen places. And everywhere the matter-antimatter packets landed, they blew something up.

Finally, the last remaining section erupted in a fit of expanding energy, painting the void with its glory. Then it faded, leaving an empty space where a Nuyyad presence had been.

“Serves them right,” said Ben Zoma.

Picard looked at his friend and wished he could disagree.

Picard gazed at Serenity Santana, the sun of her world sinking through tall trees into a deep, red-orange miasma behind her.

“Will you miss me?” she asked with a smile, the mountain wind lifting her raven hair.

Torn between emotions, the second officer shrugged. “What can I say? I wish we had met under different circumstances.”

“Then…you
won’t
miss me?”

He couldn’t help chuckling a little at her cleverness. “I didn’t say that,” he told her.

Abruptly, his combadge beeped. He tapped it in response. “Picard here.”

“We’re ready to leave, sir,” said Ben Zoma. “If you’re ready to beam up…?”

The second officer glanced at Santana again. “Give me a minute, Gilaad. Picard out.”

“You know,” she said, “we Magnians like our privacy. But if you ever get the urge to visit us…”

Picard nodded. “I’ll know where to find you.”

“I hope so,” Santana told him, her eyes telling him she meant it with all her heart.

Then she and the mountain and the sunset were gone, and he found himself standing on a transporter pad…feeling empty and terribly alone.

Carter Greyhorse was on his way to the mess hall to secure some lunch when he saw Gerda Asmund turn into the corridor up ahead of him.

He would never have planned to confront Gerda with his feelings about her in a million years. But something about the moment seemed to reek of opportunity.

“Miss Asmund?” the doctor said, his heart pounding as he hastened to catch up with her.

It was only after he had gotten within a couple of meters of her that the navigator cast a glance back over her shoulder. Her expression wasn’t an especially inviting one.

“What do you want?” she asked, as blunt as any Klingon.

“I…” Greyhorse stumbled over the words. “I’d like to talk with you sometime. Perhaps over a cup of coffee…?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” Gerda told him in a peremptory tone. “Leave me alone.” And she kept on going.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing her arm to hold her back. “Please. I really need to speak with—”

Before he could finish what he was saying, Gerda lashed out at him with the heel of her boot. It was one of the moves he had seen her make in the gymnasium, one of the exercises he had watched in awe.

Without thinking, the doctor reacted—and before the navigator’s foot could reach the side of his head, he caught it in his hand.

Suddenly, Gerda’s attitude changed. She looked surprised at his quickness—but not
just
surprised. If he were compelled to describe her expression, he would have called it one of…

Admiration.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. As she twisted, out of his grip, the woman’s lips pulled back and she lashed out again—this time, with her fist. It hit him hard in his solar plexus, driving the wind out of his lungs.

As Greyhorse doubled over, she struck him in the chin with the heel of her hand. The blow drove his head up and back, sending him staggering into the bulkhead behind him.

For a moment, he thought she would come at him again. But she didn’t. She just stood there in her martial stance, feet spread apart, hands raised in front of her, ready to dole out additional punishment if that was what she chose to do.

“I didn’t mean to antagonize you,” he told her, the taste of blood thick in his mouth.

“I told you to leave me alone,” Gerda snarled.

The doctor took a step forward, knowing full well the risk he ran. But he didn’t care. He had had her on his mind too long. Once and for all, he had to tell her how he felt.

“Just let me ex—”

As before, she attacked him before he could speak, landing an openhanded pile driver to his mouth. But he kept his balance somehow. And when she followed with another openhanded assault, he didn’t just block it with his forearm. He slugged her back.

Either she hadn’t expected Greyhorse to retaliate or he just got lucky, because the blow caught her sharply in the side of the head. In fact, it sent her reeling, clutching at the bulkhead for support.

He didn’t anticipate that she would remain that way for long, so he spoke up while he had the chance. “You’re all I can think of,” the doctor told her. “All I
want
to think of. I can’t go on like this. If I haven’t got a chance, I need to hear you say it.”

Gerda’s eyes narrowed, giving her a vaguely wolflike expression. But she didn’t say anything.

“Well?” he prodded miserably.

“You fight like a child,” she told him, the disgust in her voice cutting him even more than the words.

Greyhorse drew a deep breath. That was it, then. Gerda couldn’t make it any plainer than that.

He turned and retreated down the corridor, starting to feel bruises where the woman had struck him. But before the doctor could get very far, Gerda spoke again.

“Greyhorse.”

He turned to look at her. There was something in the navigator’s eyes, he thought, and it wasn’t disdain or revulsion. It looked more like the admiration he had seen earlier.

“Meet me in the gym tomorrow morning at eight,” she said. “Perhaps I can teach you to fight like a warrior.”

The doctor had never been an emotional man. But he felt such joy then, such a rush of heady optimism, that he could barely find the voice to get out a response.

“I’ll be there,” he promised her.

*   *   *

Picard regarded the six officers whom he had summoned to the
Stargazer’
s observation lounge. Paxton, Cariello, Ben Zoma, Simenon, Greyhorse, and Vigo looked back at him from their places around the oval table.

“I called you here,” he said, “because you have all had questions regarding the events of the last several days, during which time I have been forced to sometimes operate on a clandestine basis. I thought I would answer these questions all at once.”

Then he proceeded to do just that. When he was done, not everyone was happy—Simenon least of all. But even the Gnalish understood the second officer’s need for secrecy at various times.

Greyhorse, who had apparently bruised his chin during an accident in sickbay, didn’t fully grasp Werber’s contribution.

“Chief Werber,” Picard explained, “was the one who predicted that the phaser junctions were likely to be tampered with next.”

“But he didn’t know
which
junction?” the doctor asked.

“That is correct,” said the second officer. “We only found that out when Vigo detected a problem in the line. And it wasn’t until we spoke to Jomar in sickbay that we understood his objective.”

Greyhorse nodded. “I see.”

Picard looked around the room. “If there are no further questions, I thank you for persevering in such trying circumstances…and commend you to your respective assignments.”

He watched his command staff file out of the lounge, one by one. However, one of his officers declined to leave.

“You have something on your mind,” Ben Zoma told him. “And it has nothing to do with flow regulators and distribution manifolds.”

Picard nodded. “You’re right, Gilaad. You see, my mother taught me that one can learn from every experience. I am trying to puzzle out what I can learn from this one.”

The other man shrugged. “Not to listen to your fellow officers all the time—especially if they’re as wrong as I was about attacking the depot?”

The commander smiled. “Perhaps. Or rather,” he said, thinking out loud, “to draw on every resource available to you…”

“Even if it means taking the advice of a sworn enemy as seriously as that of a friend.”

Picard mulled it over. “That was certainly the way it worked out.”

“You know,” said Ben Zoma, “I think your mother would have been proud of you right now.”

“I hope so,” the second officer replied earnestly.

“Captain Ruhalter would have been proud of you too.”

Picard looked at him askance. “You think so?”

His friend smiled. “Don’t you?”

The second officer wanted to believe that Ruhalter would have approved of his performance. However, he wasn’t so sure that that would have been the case.

And he was even less certain of what they would have to say about it at Starfleet Headquarters.